Happy Weekend to Everyone:

A quick post…

If you haven’t registered with 3 Bears Window Cleaning Directory yet so that you can create a free listing and take advantage of some free advertising and online exposure for your window cleaning business, here’s an email I recently received that might motivate you to get it done (Actually if you need motivation to get free advertising for your business, then give me a call because we need to talk. ):

Steve,  Thanks for the Free Directory Listing on 3 Bears. I took you up on it, and last Friday got my first call, because of the listing, which I did on Saturday morning. Also today I listed the 2 other cities I work regularly so now my chances are even greater for work.

I plan to join The Customer Factor as soon as we can raise the money to start it. Have been following your blogs for the last 3 weeks, and it has helped tremendously to get my business on track Your pricing was really helpfull becuase I was always so low on my rates, I realise now that not only was I hurting myself, but I was hurting other window cleaners who were trying to earn a living.

Now I hope to turn this around and become a success even though I am 67 !!! I want to get positioned to hire others who will do the labor I’m getting too old to do. 

Niel

My Response:

Hi Niel:
 
Good morning.  That is really great.  I appreciate you letting me know this.  Would you mind if I share this with other folks?  I plan on doing some serious promotion of 3 Bears Window Cleaning Directory in a week or two, so you received a call and we haven’t even started promoting it yet.  Super duper.
 
It’s never too late to become a success.   Right…expand, bring on help/crews, and grow the biz with you on the sidelines. It’s definitely doable because I have many folks who are doing that exact same thing.  It doesn’t happen overnight obviously because it’s necessary to build a solid customer base first, but it will happen.
 
Feel free to let me know if you have any questions on The Customer Factor.  We just started accepting new members again. Take care for now. Have a great day.
 
Regards,
 
Steve

A reply from niel:

Hi Steve,

Yes by all means feel free to use it to encourage others. You have a wonderfull program to help others and I commend you for your dedication in this regard. Thanks for all you are doing and i look forward to becoming more involved in your programs as time goes on. Best of luck to you!

Niel

Hey All:

One of the challenges I face sometimes is getting window cleaners to not get dragged down by all the negative news that we hear every single day. It’s dangerous and can really impact our businesses negatively if we’re not careful. Because what it does is paralyze us into inaction. We say to ourselves "What’s the point…the economy is bad so who’s going to want their windows cleaned?" And guess what? We stop marketing which results in no one wanting their windows cleaned. )

So we need to put our head down, ignore the naysayers and plow forward. It has nothing to do with being in denial or sticking our heads in the sand. We know the economy is going south. But we CANNOT let this affect the action we need to take. I wrote about this subject in a recent newsletter.  So I won’t expand on it in this blog post. All I really want to do in this blog post is copy an email below that I received the other day from a gentleman who just spent his first week in the window cleaning business. As the title of this blog post states: "Recession…what recession?" Here’s the email:

Hi Steve well I passed out about 1300 postcards in baggy’s started last sunday and had my first job on tues in which i earned $215.00 for 6 hrs work and he paid me cash! i took longer then i should have because i also cleaned the mold on several of his windows, they were a mess,

My Response:

Hi Bill:

Good morning.

Cool…$215 cash is great.  Keep in mind, as I tell everyone, don’t focus so much on the "time" at the beginning of your career.  Because you will be slower when doing the first few jobs.  It takes a bit of time to streamline your operation.  So I would keep your pricing the same and not worry about it.  In a couple of months, that 6 hours would be knocked down to 4 to 4 1/2, so then your pricing would be accurate.

It seems like you’re moving in a great direction.  Excellent.  I would call folks back in 3 to 4 days. You’re presenting a nice looking estimate package, right?  Cover letter, reference  page, estimate sheet, business card?  I always wanted to give my prospects a good 3 or 4 days to look that over.  

Yeah…the magnetic sign will draw attention to your business, but wait ’til you see what happens with the yard sign.  Make sure you pop that in every yard of every customer you do a job for, and you’ll be amazed at the folks who will be walking by, see your sign, and either ask you for a business card or for an estimate.   It all works out.  Thanks much for your comments.  I appreciate them.   

And I’m sorry to hear about your window. I haven’t heard about anyone else doing this, but I’ll keep you posted.  Has your girlfriend stopped laughing yet?  ) 

Take care for now and have a great weekend.

Regards,

Steve

Hi Steve, 

Sergio

My Response:

Hi Sergio:

Good to hear from you.  Doing fine over here.  And how are you? 

I preferred teams of two, but I know some window cleaners have teams of 3.  I just thought that with the responsibilities for each job, two could handle it best.  More than 2 people and we’re bumping into each other at times. 

Ex: Assuming me and one other guy.  We arrive at the job.  The other guy immediately removes all equipment from car while I say hello to the homeowner, enter their home, and start removing screens.  Once the other guy has the equipment set up and ready to go, he goes around the house and collects the screens that I’m removing from the inside.  He then focuses on cleaning all screens while I get set up to start cleaning the outside windows.  As soon as he finishes the screens, he joins me cleaning the outside windows and we hopscotch around the house together.  We then repeat the process inside.  When done, the other guy places the now dry screens next to proper window to be put back in and then he would start cleaning up and putting equipment back in car/ladders on roof, etc.  I would put the screens back, present invoice, collect money, and say goodbye to homeowner.

I’m sure we could fit one other guy in the above procedure somewhere.  Like maybe while me and guy #1 are outside cleaning, guy #2 could be inside cleaning.  But I just thought it was more streamlined with 2 people total per crew.  We’re not bumping into each other and there’s no wasted time.  So overall your profits will be better because you can take this 3rd guy and place him on a new job with one other guy. Repeat the process at house #2 with guy #3 and guy #4 working it, and you’re all set.

Hope this helps.  Take care for now.

Regards,

Steve

A follow up:

Thanks Steve, 

Sergio

My Response:

Hi Sergio:

Great…That sounds super.  The system I described earlier worked for me in my area, but as you mentioned, with your homes being "mansions" and having "old windows", a team of 3 might fit you better.  As long as each person knows what their responsibilities are and there is no overlap, then it’ll work for you.  In my market with my homes, I would have had overlap which would have decreased my overall profits. 

Thanks for your comments on 3 Bears Window Cleaning Directory. I’ll start doing some search engine optimization work soon to make 3 Bears rank high in the search engines.  For folks like yourself who are listed, they will see results from prospective customers finding their window cleaning businesses in the directory.  Take care for now.

Regards,

Steve  

Hope you’re having a super weekend!

Just a real quick blog post to let you know that we’re gearing up for the reopening of The Customer Factor on tuesday, April 22nd, so if you are not a member already, give it a quick look-see. Even if you looked at it before, feel free to check it out again. Many changes and improvements have been made just in the last couple of months.

As a side note though…behind the scenes we’re working on a new webpage listing all the new features. It’ll be ready for viewing on tuesday. In the meantime, I have created a series of short videos if you want to look deeper into the software. Here they are:

Video #1 – Easy Breezy Intro

Video #2 – Scheduling Jobs

Video #3 – Daily/Weekly/Monthly Calendars

Video #4 – Searching

More to come….

Enjoy!

Steve

P.S. Oh…and in 3 Bears Window Cleaning Directory, we created a new feature where you can assign the listing you create for your business to 2 additional locations besides your main location. So please login to 3 Bears and edit your listing to take advantage of this feature. If you haven’t listed your window cleaning business yet in 3 Bears, what are you waiting for? It’s free!

A 4/23 Update

The Customer Factor reopened smoothly 4/22/08. If you happened to sign up to my mailing list before I removed it, I’ll continue to send you short videos to give you a peek "behind the scenes".

Hey Everyone:

I get a lot of emails, so I like to post ‘em here on occasion so that other folks can benefit from them. 2 are posted below.

Have a profitable weekend!

Steve

Hi Steve

Thanks
Ted

My Response

Hi Ted,

Good morning.  If you owned my window cleaning software, The Customer Factor, it would only be a matter of clicking on one link on the home page.    Boom…all the customers would be right in front of you. 

But anyway…the only way I know of to get it done manually is to use index cards. At the end of every customer job, I used to ask my customers when they would like me to come back. I then made a note on the index card.  This went into my index card box which was broken down by month from January to December.  So let’s say for example, I did some windows for someone on April 1, and they were a six-month customer.  I created an index card for them and made a note to call them back on December 1, so as I’m browsing through my index cards for the month of December looking for callbacks, I would run across their card and give him a call. 

As a side note though, depending on your schedule, it’s best to call them in advance of dec 1 (using above example).  I used to call 4 to 5 weeks in advance of a customer’s tentative repeat appointment so that I had time to schedule it properly. 

As far as what to say when you call, it’s real simple. You can say something like: "Hi Mrs. Jones. Ted here with xyz window cleaning service.  We cleaned your windows last year on august 9th, and it’s that time again to bring the shine back to your glass.  I’m setting up my schedule now for the week of march 9th to the 14th.  Which day within that week would be good for you?"

And that’s all there is to it.  A little psychological ploy, but when you call, try not to schedule an appt. for the next day or "right away".  People are busy and if cornered into making an appointment for "tomorrow", they’ll more than likely put you off and delay.  I learned this in the insurance biz that no matter how bad I may have wanted to make an appt. "tomorrow", I always scheduled stuff for "next week" or "next month".  Because these time periods seem so far away.  It’s kind of like they’ll never arrive.  But they do.  So it’s easier for a customer to say "yes" to scheduling a job "next week" or "next month".  Make sense?

And if you’ve applied any of the other techniques I discuss in my manual and on this blog, then the follow up call is so easy to make because you will have already established a relationship with them.  For example…have you mailed them a greeting card two or 3 times in the last 6 months?  Have you sent them any personalized correspondence?  If not, then making these follow up calls is a bit more like a cold call because they have not heard from you in 6 months.  So be willing to invest both time and some money (it doesn’t cost much to send greeting cards) in working the relationships.  If you don’t, sure you’ll make repeat appointments when you make your follow up call.  But it’s not near as effective as if you had a relationship "established".  Customers need to know you care about ‘em for more than just the money you’ll make from ‘em on those repeat jobs.  So work those relationships to the max.  Believe me when I say that your business will grow at a much better clip if you do.         

Hope this helps.  Take care for now.

Regards,

Steve

Another Email:

Hi Steve,

Thanks,
Aaron.

My Response:

Hi Aaron:

Good morning and it’s good to hear from you.  So you ready to move up from the "occasional help"?  Let’s expand outward and really start seeing the fruit of your efforts. 

I appreciate your comments on The Customer Factor.  And just wait ’til you see what is in store.  Whew…the features coming up will be really cool and extremely powerful.

It’ll really be easy to track for you now using The Customer Factor. I used to use index cards as I mentioned in my manual and it was a royal pain and very cumbersome.  Now it’s just a matter of logging into The Customer Factor.  You will see immediately on the home page who needs to be called/contacted.  Same thing with prospects. It can’t get much easier than that.  Just remember to always set a frequency period for each customer.  The Customer Factor will then calculate the "last job date" along with their frequency period, and give you the information you need for tracking/follow up.

Having 2 to 3 crews is easy.  There are the usual challenges in finding quality people, but once you iron out those kinks, it smooths itself out.  We all had to go through the usual employee hiccups. Focus on local colleges (student resource centers) vs putting a general ad in the newspaper.  And be willing to step back from making "all" the profits.  Be willing to free up your time so you can spend it on 3 things-marketing, estimating, and customer service. Think more like an owner and let your subs/employees be the technicians.  This is what’ll take you to the next level.     

Right..it’s all about creating a "system".  It always amazes me how mcdonalds can spit out a big mac the same way in florida as they can in russia.  They’ve developed a unique system so customers know what they’re going to get regardless which mcdonalds they go to.  Customers certainly don’t frequent mcdonalds because their food is 5 stars. )  They go back again and again because there are no surprises.  They know what they’re going to get.  So what i’m saying is that if you can create a similar system (on a much smaller scale obviously) where your customers know they are going to get the same quality job whether you do it, joe does it, harry does it, or carol does it, then you’ve just won the battle.  This will allow you to work "on" the business and not "in" the business.  It appears for the last 4 years based on what you’ve said that you’ve worked "in". Now let’s focus on working "on".  Sound cool?

As far as quickbooks. I did use it at the time in my biz, and it allowed me to print invoices, keep track of sales, and keep a customer database.  I’m a bit biased now obviously. But I personally would use only The Customer Factor if I were you. I will say though that quickbooks allows you to do things with your bank that The Customer Factor does not.  But as far as sales, invoices, customer db, etc, etc, The Customer Factor does all that.  And you definitely want your customers in The Customer Factor so the software can search and track ‘em.

So i think it’s your call really.  Do you need the banking functions that quickbooks provides?  If so, then it may be best to fire up quickbooks too.  If not, then quickbooks isn’t necessary at all. I created The Customer Factor to operate independently of any other software.

Thanks again for your comments.  If you have any other questions, please let me know.  Take care for now.

Regards,

Steve